Today, in our Trailblazers-in-Reform series, we hone-in on China's banking sector. As China's economy became more open, more market-oriented, this brought significant opportunities for foreign banks in China. CGTN's Lily Lyu spoke with one financier who was among the very first batch of local talents recruited by a foreign bank to get a firsthand view of the evolution of China's banking industry.

A jogger by the river, a banker in the office. Frank Fang is one of the tens of thousands of financial professionals in Shanghai's Lujiazui, also known as the "Wall Street" of China. Now a senior executive at HSBC China, Frank has come a long way from his first encounter with a foreign bank in the Chinese mainland. That was nearly 3 decades ago, in 1991.

FRANK FANG, EVP & HEAD OF COMMERCIAL BANKING HSBC BANK (CHINA) CO LTD. "That was the first year HSBC launched a recruitment program in China. I was young and curious about everything. The entire banking industry was so alien to me. The only experience I had was putting money in the bank and withdrawing. Three years of training programs, I was assigned back to China and my first position was IT manager. It was pretty challenging. I thought to myself, if I loved IT I would've joined IBM, not HSBC. So every day was a learning experience for us. What I did was to bring HSBC standard banking system into China. I was pretty confident after that job because I can build a bank by myself."

HSBC may have been a whole new playing field for Frank, but China was never alien to the bank, as a matter of fact, it was home. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation started out in 1865 with a clear and simple aim, to support trade along the Chinese coast. Over the years, trade became so much more extensive and varied, HSBC grew with the market and trade finance became its mainstay. Throughout the 1920s, the SH office anchored HSBC's position as a dominant foreign bank in China. The bronze lions used to guard the SH office in the 1920s were so popular that the bank decided to keep it as a tradition. China's first steps at the end of the 1970s to reform and open up its economy provided new opportunities for foreign banks. In 1984, HSBC became the first international bank to be granted a banking license in the Chinese mainland since the founding of the PRC.